Rome was said to be founded in 754 BC by two twin boys named Romulus and
Remus. These two boys were abandoned by their parents, but were said to be cared
for and suckled by a she-wolf. Archaeologists have discovered that life in Rome
had actually begun in the 9th or 8th century BC as a series of small farmsteads
on a group of hills overlooking the River Tiber. Early Rome houses such as the
so-called "Hut of Romulus", were preserved as a pattern of postholes on the
Palentine. This hut would of had walls of wattle and daub, and thatched roofs.
This settlement was intelligently positioned, as it was overlooking a convenient
crossing point on the Tiber and near a important salt route to and from the
river mouth.

A critical development came in the late 7th century BC, when an Etruscan
dynasty, the Tarquins, took control of Rome and changed it from a village and
into a city. The Forum valley was then converted into a public square with a
gravel paved surface. Pons Sublicius a wooden bridge was thrown across the River
Tiber, as well as an Etruscan-style temple to Jupiter Capitolinus build on the
Capitol. There may also have benn an agger, or city wall, with a defensive ditch
beyond it. This is the oldest defence which survives today, the Servian Wall,
which dates back from the 4th century BC.

Roman historians state that the Romans evicted their last Etruscan king,
Tarquin the Proud, in 510 BC, and became a republic governed by a pair of
annualy elected magistrates, the consuls. It was a huge step, the first step
which was to take Rome in less than five centuries from small Italian town to
the giant of the Mediterranean.